The US ambassador's chauffeur smuggles his family out in the official car

Joerg Habermann had worked as a driver for various foreign embassies in East Berlin since October 1973. In August 1979 he had been assigned for two weeks to the US Embassy as the driver of Ambassador David Bolen.

On the morning of Saturday 25 August 1979, alone in the ambassador's car, he stopped in a tunnel in East Berlin, where his wife and their six-year-old daughter climbed into the boot. He then drove through Checkpoint Charlie into West Berlin, let them out and returned to East Berlin, where he drove the ambassador through his normal working day.

At the end of the day Habermann parked the car and walked into West Berlin on his own passport, which was validated for travel to West Berlin. The US Mission noted that it had known some embassy drivers held exit visas allowing them to take diplomatic vehicles to the West, but not that these papers were also valid on foot. The family stayed with relatives over the weekend and reported to the West Berlin police on Monday 27 August; they then went to the Marienfelde refugee centre.

Habermann told his American interrogators that he had fled because of harassment by the Stasi. He admitted having reported to the Ministry for State Security on the diplomats he drove, but said he had had no specific tasking concerning the US ambassador. The US Embassy in East Berlin stressed that it had no advance knowledge of his plans.

The case caused a stir in the West German press. The GDR chose not to raise it at a high level; its service office for embassies only complained about the 'sensationalist' publicity, suggested that organisations in West Berlin or the Federal Republic were behind the escape and asked for Habermann's passport back. Habermann left Berlin for the Federal Republic on 9 September 1979.